Enjoy the first chapter of Keres' Eyes!
CHAPTER 1
The test subject screamed in anger and frustration.
Danny Neumann did his best to ignore the screams as he prepared the syringe, but it wasn’t easy. They were deafening, echoing in his ears as they bounced off the walls of the sealed room.
When he couldn’t take it anymore, he shot the animal a glare. “Stop your bitching. We’re not gonna kill you today.”
The monkey fell silent, as if it understood. But then it started shrieking again, its tiny hands wrapped around the bars of its cage.
Danny gritted his teeth. Where was Craig? Danny couldn’t start without him. Not only was it against protocol, but he needed help strapping the beast down. It was the only way he’d safely be able to draw blood to see how the antibodies were doing.
At least the monkey hadn’t been infected with anything. It was being prepped to be exposed to the new virus, the latest in a line of biological monsters that had been created down here in this cold, underground womb. Danny hated having to infect these animals—the facility had a number of them: monkeys, rabbits, etc.—but there was no use complaining about it. Sacrifices had to be made.
He shot an impatient glance towards the door. He wanted to get this over with. The monkey was driving him batshit.
He grabbed the syringe, hesitated, and put it back down. “Don’t be stupid, Danny,” he thought aloud.
He glanced at the door again but the pressure-sealed door remained closed. The thick glass embedded in the door allowed him to see the hallway beyond. Empty. He turned and looked at the door to Lab 7, but it was dark.
He shook his head. The CO was always on time. This wasn’t like him.
Captain Craig Leland sat in his darkened office, oblivious to the hustle and flow of the level as he stared at the communiqué in his hands. He read it over and over, understanding the message even as his mind struggled to accept it. He hadn’t expected it to come this quickly—
The phone rang.
Without taking his eyes off the document, he picked up the receiver. “Yes?”
“Sir? Are you coming?”
“Yeah,” Craig replied. “I … I’ll be right there.”
He was only dimly aware that Danny was still talking as he hung up. His hazel eyes remained locked on the communiqué, traveling over the terse words until they hammered in his brain. He tried to convince himself that it was good news, that it was what he wanted, but the pit in his stomach spoke otherwise.
“What makes you happy?” her voice whispered, that fate-ful conversation from two years ago slipping through his thoughts. He knew what made him happy. She did. Trisha Foster. His sub-ordinate—which was the problem.
The paper in his hand resolved the conflict inside him, although not for the better. He didn’t have a choice. It would change everything. Things already were different, though no one knew it. Not yet. This communiqué announced the end.
It had to be this way.
He thought of the others down here, men and women he considered family. He was the leader of a group of talented scientists dedicated to the creation of and subsequent protection from the deadliest viruses in the world. It was a dangerous, delicate job that required massive support and massive protection—both of which were provided by a government that knew little of its existence.
Craig’s team worked in one of the most secret military installations ever devised. Buried deep underground, the laboratory had been built in the 1950s to keep pace with the world in terms of chemical and biological weapons. Now, however, they focused strictly on biological agents.
It was difficult working in a place like this, cut off from the rest of the world, handling some of the most dangerous agents known to mankind. People’s quirks and personality traits flared brightly in this restricted environment, far from the comforting rays of the sun. With the extreme conditions and constant pressure, he was forced to coddle his people to make sure they all got along. At times, it made for delicate situations.
Their reactions to the bomb in his hand would be terrible to witness.
He suddenly ripped his eyes away from the piece of paper. Glanced at the clock. No wonder Danny had called. Craig should’ve been there twenty minutes ago.
He searched for a place to put the communiqué, opened his desk drawer and jammed it inside. As he began to close the drawer, he spotted the other messages piled on his desk, left forgotten as he’d stared at the communiqué, and with an arm swiped them into the drawer before closing it.
He stood to go. In frustration, he picked up a dart and threw it with a practiced turn of his wrist at the dartboard hanging on the opposite wall of his office, wedged in between motivational post-ers that had been all the rage a few years back—posters he didn’t even glance at anymore.
He didn’t have to look to know where it landed. He had been throwing darts for years and was a master champion. The dart landed square in the center of the board, piercing its red heart.
Bullseye.
Danny washed his hands as the toilet filled behind him, humming to himself as he meticulously scrubbed them clean. When he finished, he looked at his reflection in the mirror. He was in no rush to return to the lab. The monkey’s screams had been like daggers assaulting his ears.
He primped for a few moments, gave himself a sly grin, and finally turned to leave. He couldn’t wait to make his announcement. It was going to be huge. Man was his life gonna change. He wouldn’t be just another worker bee after this. He would get the respect he deserved, that he’d longed for so long.
Still humming, he walked out of the bathroom, back towards Lab 6—but then stopped. Something was wrong. He wondered if he’d made a big mistake. The little shit was screeching its head off.
But it was more than that. The doors to the labs sealed airtight and very little sound escaped. He shouldn’t have been able to hear the creature in the first place.
Suddenly, alarms erupted around him. He flinched with the sheer volume of sound, the electronic noise jabbing straight through his eardrums and into the center of his brain. Before he could react, doors appeared as if out of nowhere. He stared at them dumbly as they slid out of the wall and quickly, efficiently, slid across the hallway. The doors—which he hadn’t known even existed—blocked off the hallway leading to the “courtyard”, as well as the side hallway that led to Lab 4 and Animal Storage.
He was trapped.
The monkey continued to scream.
In a state of near panic, Danny turned back to Lab 6. He wasn’t cut off from the door that led into the Lab. He had a way out.
He’d only taken one step when a burning sensation swept through him.
* * *
After locking his office—something he rarely did—Craig turned and started down the hallway. To his relief, no one was around. He was in no mood for idle chitchat.
A quick glance at his watch caused him to quicken his pace.
He was trying to remember which test the virologist was running today when a siren went off. He jerked in surprise, as he’d never heard that kind of alarm before. But he only paused for a moment. His training quickly took over and he broke into a run, scrambling towards the source of the alarm.
He raced past the conference room, across the “courtyard”, turned the corner to Lab 6—and nearly collided with a door. He managed to stop in time, although his confusion remained. He didn’t know where it had come from. It had to be a form of protection, a means to contain a potential outbreak, as it filled the entire hallway, blocking his path. Made up primarily of thick glass, it enabled Craig to see the hallway on the other side.
To his horror, he watched as Danny struggled to remain on his feet, trapped inside the sudden containment area.
A dozen questions leapt to Craig’s mind but his first concern was his subordinate’s safety. He pounded on the glass, trying to get to Danny, but the glass, set tightly within the metal-composite frame, didn’t budge.
In the flashing light that accompanied the alarm, Craig watched Danny struggle to take a step.
Craig heard the others running towards him, responding to the alert. He glanced behind him and saw equal looks of surprise and trepidation. Tony was the first to arrive, followed by Sebastian Bierg. Sebastian was the Senior Scientist and the smartest man Craig had ever met. Craig looked at him hopefully, but the look in Sebastian’s eyes told him what he already feared: they had no hope of getting to Danny.
The rest of the team quickly showed up. Besides Craig, there were eleven people who worked on this level: six scientists, three technicians, a biomedical engineer and a maintenance worker. Even Mouse, the maintenance worker, responded.
Kim Sook Chang, one of four women in the group, pushed her way forward and put her hands on the glass. “Danny!”
Craig doubted Danny could hear her. The glass was too thick. Even so, Danny turned around and smiled at her—or, tried to smile. He shuffled towards the door, his terror-filled eyes locked onto hers.
The entire staff watched in silent horror as he stumbled and fell.
He stretched out his hand and pressed it against the glass. Stifling a sob, Kim moved her hand to the same spot. His eyes remained locked on hers as his body began to convulse, his face turning pale.
Then his eyes began to change.
Gray splotches appeared in the whites of his eyes, rapidly growing and overlapping. Within moments, his pupils were islands in a sea of black. Danny’s mouth opened in a scream, the thick door muffling most of his primal cry of fear and pain. Then his body convulsed violently once, twice, and he collapsed to the floor, dead.